


Burgers Are Forever: a Louise Belcher Redemption Arc

by sortakate



Category: Bob's Burgers (Cartoon)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Assassin!Louise, Dark!Louise, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, M/M, SecretAgent!Louise, Spy!AU, Spy!Louise, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:06:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28578711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sortakate/pseuds/sortakate
Summary: When Louise, a battered and maybe slightly sociopathic highly-trained assassin, is called home by Tina to help with the restaurant, she never expected her childhood enemy, Logan Bush, to have opened a clinic next door. Determined not to let him get to her, Louise pours herself into restaurant work and visiting Bob in the hospital to mend their shattered relationship. But as her secretive past catches up to her and the restaurant's fate hangs in the balance, Logan might be the only soul that can save her life—literally.
Relationships: Louise Belcher/Logan Bush, Tina Belcher/Zeke (Bob's Burgers)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	1. Atomic Blondes Have More Fun

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously this is dedicated to Tina, a die-hard fanfic writer and lover of butts. This fic was inspired by Gene though and his line in season 5, episode 10 Late Afternoon in the Garden of Bob and Louise.   
> Gene says to Logan and Louise during their bickering, "I bet when you reconnect in your 30's, you guys will get married."  
> This is that story. 

“If I have to ask you again, agent Theron, your fingers will no longer be attached to your hand.”

The agent’s head rolled around her shoulder lazily as she shot a withered glare toward her torturer’s yellowed eyes. His brown skin took on the greenish tint of the fluorescents flickering above them, he looked sickly. A burly, sickly monster with stubby fingers and breath that reeked of rotten onions. 

The agent sighed, focused on the sweat dribbling down her throat, diluting the streaks of blood from an earlier encounter between someone’s hand on the back of her head, a brick wall, and her nose. 

“And if I have to tell you again that I’m not speaking to you without a lawyer…” She drew. 

The burly man retaliated with a slap that sent her teeth chattering against each other. While she waited for the stars to fade from her vision, the burly man, Oleg or something—she couldn’t quite remember what the files said especially with her fuzzy head—began attaching jumper cables to the tender flesh between her toes. Red nail polish from a two-week old pedicure winked at her as Oleg flipped the switch. 

Voltage stung her skin and poured electricity into her bones. Every muscle in her body, from her legs to her face seized and contracted against the chair, her cuffed hands rattling the wooden arms. 

In the middle of electrocution, a phone rang. The agent concentrated solely on the ringing as her body fought against unconsciousness. She could last a lot longer than this at even higher voltages, but goddamn it still hurt. 

Oleg, or maybe it was Olaf, turned off the battery the second the phone ceased ringing.

“Ready to talk?”

The agent gasped and panted, her fingers still twitching, her feet trying to kick out bolts of lightning. 

When she supplied him no words, Oleg moved his hand back to the battery. 

The phone rang again. He hesitated. 

“You gonna…” The agent huffed. “…Get that?”

Oleg or Olaf glared at her, then toward the other room where the phone’s shrill presence demanded attention. 

“It’s rude to leave people—“ the agent began to taunt, but was promptly cut off by Oleg/Olaf shoving a filthy cloth into her mouth. The taste of sweat and grease and blood burned her tongue as the man left the dingy torture room: underground, windowless, concrete for days. She knew vaguely where she was at, some abandoned office building in a planned city that never took off. 

The agent closed her eyes and took inventory, savoring the brief respite from torture. Her nose was broken and so was her left pointer finger, but both had gone numb. A rib might’ve been broken too. She breathed in sharply and was greeted only by a dull ache. Not broken, then. Bruised more likely. The jumper cables had definitely left burns on her feet, but they would be minimal. 

This torturer was soft, tame compared to others the agent had met over the course of her highly secretive career. He even left her alone to answer a phone! What a moron.

Surprisingly, when the burly man reappeared, the phone was still in his hands, the flat device pressed against his ear while a tinny voice spoke on the other end. 

“It’s for you,” he said unexpectedly and held it out to her as if the agent wasn’t bound. Red tinged his cheeks as he shuffled closer to hold the phone to her ear. 

She complained against the rag, a series of consonants and sounds against cloth until the man yanked it out of her mouth with an irritated growl. 

“Not a great time,” she hissed, her mouth bone dry. 

“Agent Theron, it’s Rudes. I’m putting you on with someone who’s been trying to get a hold of you.”

“I’m working!” The agent complained, glaring at the burly man holding the phone. Now she understood his reaction, why he gave her the phone. Rudy could convince the sun not to set, the ocean not to churn, the birds not to fly, if only he asked. 

“Louise?” A new voice came on the line. Despite the equatorial heat and humidity, the agent’s body went utterly cold at the sound of an address she hadn’t heard in over a decade. 

“Louise,” the voice repeated. “It’s Tina.”

“Hi T,” she squeaked out, feeling nine years old again. Instantly, getting out of that damn chair felt like the most important thing in the world. The sound of her older sister’s voice—a melody she hand’t heard since she left home—made her skin itchy. She needed to run. She needed to crawl out of her own body. She needed to disappear.

“Dad’s in the hospital.”

The agent could only focus on the man next to her, his irritated inhale, his awkward shift of weight from one foot to the other. 

“I’ll call you back.”

“Loui—“ But the man had already pulled the phone away. 

“Time’s up, buttercup,” Oleg-Olaf threatened, setting the phone on his table of tools and instruments. The agent was prepared to sit through most of them, just to prove she could, but now all she wanted to do was go back to her sleazy motel downtown and curl into a ball. 

“Okay,” she whispered. “Boring chat anyway.”

“Huh?” Oleg-Olaf asked. The agent murmured again, quieter this time. He leaned toward her, wrapping a finger around a lock of her bleached hair. The sensation was utter sickness. She was thousands of miles and a lifetime away from a comforting pink bunny hat she used to hide in. 

“Speak louder, agent Theron.”

But the agent didn’t say anything as she slammed her head into his. He reeled back with a cry, slapping his short grubby fingers over his face. During his recoil, the agent slithered out of the useless cuffs and sliced the rope from her ankles with a flick of a diamond-enforced fingernail. God bless the ever-growing nail designing industry and Francesca for her willingness to take on the agent’s craziest ideas. 

“You bitch!” Oleg shouted as she leapt from the wooden chair and selected a deliciously well-balanced meat cleaver from the adjacent table.

She turned just time for him to take a swipe at her, ducking in an instant. He staggered, off-balance and reached for her again. He caught her once, but she would never make the same mistake twice. The agent took her chance, swinging the meat cleave into his left shoulder. It landed with a fleshy pound, blood spraying both of their faces like fireworks.

He cried like a child and the agent was pleased in her previous assessment labelling him a soft torturer. Only the best torturers knew how to handle pain, how to swallow screams, and how to dive so deep into oneself that detachment became its own identity. She would know, she’d done more than her fair share of torturing and being tortured. 

The agent wasted no time removing the cleaver, lifting it above her head and slamming into the side of his throat as his howl became a gurgle.

_“Louise, it’s Tina.”_

The man fell to his knees, his choking, wet cries echoed by the concrete floor. She wiggled the knife out again.

_“Dad’s in the hospital.”_

The cleaver slammed into the side of his face, cheekbone cracking under the force, eyes rolling into the back of his head. 

_“Louise, it’s Tina.”_

Knife out, slam back into flesh. Over and over and over. 

_“Dad’s in the hospital.”_

Blood, sticky and plentiful coated her face, throat, and arms.

_“Louise, it’s Tina.”_

The agent rose, throwing the meat clever to ground where it clattered with a metallic twang. Oleg-Olaf’s jerking against death quieted and stilled. 

_“Louise.”_

But Louise was dead, deader than Oleg-Olaf, buried deeper than the Earth’s core. 

_“Dad’s in the hospital.”_

She wiped the blood from her face with the same dirty rag shoved into her mouth just moments ago. 

_“Dad.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'll try to post updates at least weekly, if not twice a week! Just depends on how much writing I can get done. :)


	2. From Malaysia, With Love

The ice bucket clattered to the cheap linoleum floor as agent Theron sunk into the shallow, sea-foam green tub. Only her kneecaps and the top of her head remained above the frigid, ice-filled water turning a rusty color. She closed her eyes and exhaled, savoring the tickling bubbles on her lips and the ice numbing her bruised and battered body. 

_“Louise, it’s Tina.”_

Agent Theron broke the surface with a gasp, smoothing away the wet platinum blond hair that clung to her face. She grabbed the cheap plastic cup of red wine waiting on the closed toilet seat, chugged it to the halfway mark.

She blamed her mother for this vice. 

_“Dad’s in the hospital.”_

Agent Theron felt positively haunted. 

She chugged the rest of the wine and slammed the cup back onto the porcelain, the sound ringing in her ears. Leaning her head against the tiled wall, she wished she had morphine. Or Percocet. Hell, she’d take ketamine at this point. Before she did this freelance work, the agency used to provide extensive first aid kits to travel with, phone numbers for international doctors with very few hang-ups about over-prescribing, and killer health insurance that covered even cosmetic surgery. Free botox for life for the low, low price of one’s morals.

Settling for more of a say in her own life, Theron merely took enough ibuprofen to frighten her internal organs and stayed in her frigid ice bath. 

After chugging half of the wine bottle (she left it right next to the tub), she called Rudy. He answered on the first ring.

“You ruined a perfect good job for me, Rudes, say goodbye to your ten percent.”

“Goodbye ten percent,” he said immediately. “But I would do it again.”

Theron groaned and shifted in her ice bath. With the cruel Malaysian heat and lack of an air-con in her room, the ice was melting fast. Too fast. She toed the faucet on to pour fresh water in the tub, making up for what had leaked through the faulty drain. 

“Is it true?” Theron asked, putting the phone on speaker. “What she said.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, Theron, your father is in the hospital. Did you talk to her more?” Rudy inquired.

“No.” The agent rested her face against the tub wall, wincing when a tender spot on her jaw came into contact with unforgiving porcelain. “I was a little busy.”

“I’ll say.” Rudy whistled. “The cleanup crew thought burning the whole building down was the best option. You really did a number with that meat cleaver.” 

“Did you recover the meat cleaver? I may want to use it again.”

“For the nostalgia factor, right?” Rudy joked, but it made Theron go silent. She thought about the knives her father had, the ones he fawned over, the ones he made up stupid little voices and personalities for. He had a meat cleaver named Sheila, but to the best of Theron’s knowledge, it never brutally murdered someone. 

“I should call her,” Theron said, punctuating the sentence with a sigh. 

“I support this decision,” Rudy said, his tone nearly stiff. 

“Text me the number. Oh, and have a delivery boy bring me more wine. I’m all out,” she asked, tipping her wine bottle to watch the remaining drops spill onto the linoleum. 

“No way.” Rudy scoffed. “There’s a 74% chance that you have a concussion and there’s a 97% chance you’re an alcoholic.” 

She hummed. “Only a 97% chance? I’ll have to try harder.”

“I’m texting you the number now,” he said, ignoring her. The phone buzzed on the toilet. She grabbed it, memorized the number and deleted the message. She turned speakerphone off and held the device back up to her ear. 

“Thanks,” Theron said and slid back further into the frigid water, risking the phone’s integrity that dangerously close to the rippling surface. “One more thing, Rudes.”

“Anything for you.”

“Do you think one day…” Theron started, but then stopped herself. “Never mind, Rudes, talk to you later.”

“I’ll meet you in Amsterdam with a fresh identity and passport,” Rudy said. It was blatantly obvious that Theron didn’t have a choice in the matter, she would be returning to her childhood home one way or another. 

They said their goodbyes and Theron hung up. She tapped the phone against her chin, hesitating. 

After a moment, she pressed the numbers into the phone and hit call. The American dial tone matched the rhythm of her breath. 

“Hello?”

“T.”

“Louise,” the voice on the other end sighed in relief. “I’m glad you actually called back.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, I was right in the middle of a work thing.”

“A work thing…right,” Tina responded. She hesitated, the silence crackling between them.

“What you said about dad…Is he all right?”

“No, he had an accident, he’s in a coma. Mom won’t leave his side and to pay all the medical bills they have to keep the restaurant open. It’s been just me and Zeke working for a few weeks now.” 

“A few weeks?” Theron asked, offense rippling her words. “Why are you just now calling?”

“You’re a hard person to reach, Louise, and I didn’t want to…drag you back here if I didn’t have to.”

Theron wished she would stop using that name. “Oh, but now you have to?” 

“Yes. Dad’s condition is not getting any better and I’m about to lose Zeke’s help soon.”

“Why?” Theron asked, but it was a dumb question. She was never impressed with Tina’s choice in men, especially men she’d dated since high school. After Tina’s infatuation with Jimmy Jr. waned into something less obsessive and she got to spend more time with him and Zeke as just friends, their friendship bloomed into something else. They were married before Theron had left home.

“He’s starting a new business venture with Henry Haber and Jimmy Jr, it’s a tech start-up specializing in digital dance lessons.”

“And that’s more important than you and our family?”

“You thought a lot of things were more important than me and our family before, Louise.”

Damn, Tina knew how to cut her to the quick. 

“What about Gene?” Theron asked, ignoring the previous jab.

“Do you not browse the internet? Read the newspaper? He’s going on tour, playing all of his greatest hits. I can’t ask him to postpone that.”

“Then ask him to pay for dad’s medical bills. And the rent for the restaurant.”

“Money isn’t the problem.”

“You just said it was two seconds again.”

“Fine, we didn’t want to take his money. The real issue is that Dad asked for you. You specifically. He could die. Do you really want your last memory together to be the one that it is?”

Theron chewed on her already busted lip until copper filled her mouth.

The day she left was the same day Louise died. The day she decided to put herself, her own ambitions, and her dreams above everyone else’s, was the day she was no longer a Belcher. Bob had said so himself. 

“If you walk out of this restaurant, don’t ever come back!”

It was so cliche, in hindsight. Also, it had happened before to Bob; his own father said something similar to him in his youth, but little Bob was able to come back. Could Louise? 

“What does mom have to say?”

“She doesn’t know I called you, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Tina said. In the background, Theron could make out the sound of a small child screaming. Tina murmured something away from the microphone. 

“If I come, how could I even help you? I’m not necessarily allowed back in the states and if they ever caught Louise Belcher rolling around her old stomping grounds, I might end up tied to the pier under the wharf.”

“You can handle it,” Tina said, bizarrely confident. “Make up another fake identity, I don’t care. I just need help at the restaurant for a few months. And, in the mean time, you can make your peace with dad.”

Theron nodded, chewed her lips some more. This was unavoidable. Every choice she made in her life had led to this moment, there was no going back. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “Do you think Dad is going to die?” 

Tina moaned. “I’ll pick you up the airport, just tell me when.”

“No need, I have friends everywhere. I’ll be home soon, T.”

“Great,” she replied. “And Louise?”

Another charged silence passed between them before Theron could reply with a whispered, “Yes?”

“I missed you,” Tina said and the line disconnected.


	3. Bourne Again Identity

Theron landed in Amsterdam in a bad mood, going straight from Schipol airport to the red light district where she could blend in with the hoard of open-mouthed tourists. After tossing her suitcase and backpack onto the white sheets of her hotel bed, Theron pulled on a gray hoodie and went for a run along the canal. At just before 6am, the city was delightfully quiet, only populated by a few bleary-eyed employees and maintenance workers preparing for another day of sin and indulgence. All of the tourists were still sleeping, hours away from filling the old streets again in search of weed, over-priced brunch, and flesh. And even though she hated running, it did make her feel more in control as her feet smacked the damp gray cobblestone, headphones blaring angsty punk music on tempo with her racing heart. 

The sun rose on the Netherlands, punctuated by smell of freshly brewed espresso burned crisply in the air. Theron paused at the railing over a canal, hoisting a cramping leg onto a metal pole to stretch. 

A regular-sized man paused next to her, hands shoved into his gray peacoat. He whistled lowly in awe.

“Nothing like a sunrise in Amsterdam, don’t you think?” 

Theron lowered her hood, removed the in-ear headphones. Recognizing the man, she relaxed, leaning her elbows against the cool metal bar, staring at the churning black-green water beneath her. 

She shrugged. “I’ve seen better.”

He chuckled, the orange light of early morning highlighting his reddish hair, crinkled eyes, and a curved lips. “Fair enough. But there’s just something so special about sunrises when we’re guaranteed so few in this line of work.” 

“Crippling sense of fading mortality hitting you hard this morning, Rudolph?” Theron asked, a smirk on her face reflecting his. How long had it been since she’d since Rudy in person? Six months? A year? She resisted the urge to smack him. 

“No, just remembering the last sunrise we spent together.”

“You mean the time you got shot?” Theron teased, but grimaced at her own words. The last mission Rudy actually joined Theron in the field for had ended with a bullet in his shoulder and her fingers pressed into the wound as the sun rose over Jakarta. It was yet another memory she wished to forget. It didn’t matter when her body was sliced or burned or damaged, but hurting Rudy incited a rage in her she didn’t even understand. She burned an entire village down looking for the betrayer that let Rudy get hurt, all sense of sanity abandoned.

Rudy chuckled, ever the diplomat. That’s probably why the CIA liked him so much as their fixer. Theron consistently felt like she didn’t deserve Rudy’s good-naturedness, that his help in finding her freelance jobs like petty assassinations or mild espionage was too much. Rudy insisted that her saving his life a few times more than paid for his occasional leads, but the price felt too imbalanced for Theron, that she was eternally asking too much of him. But she was selfish, so she kept these insecurities to herself and merely kept taking. 

“Want to go get some breakfast? There’s a tiny cafe on the corner that makes the most amazing vegan breakfast sandwiches,” Rudy said, his eyes alight at the prospect. 

“Do they have coffee?”

“This is Europe, of course they have coffee.” 

“Lead the way, Stieblitz.” 

* * *

“So,” Rudy said, wiping the corner of his mouth with a crisp white linen, dotted yellow with egg-substitute. “Are you ready to return home?”

“Well, it doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice since you let Tina talk to me.”

Rudy shook his head, spearing an orange cherry tomato on his plate. “You can’t blame me for that—she told me what she told you, I couldn’t keep that a secret. I’m merely asking: if you return home, are you going to be okay? You’ve spent a lot of time living a very strange life.”

Theron ran the side of her hand over the flame of a candle on the table. “About that….I’m assuming you have a good alias set up for me? If not, can I suggest a strung out divorcee forced to work in a slop-shop-burger-joint-by-the-beach after her husband took all the money?”

“No,” he said, taking a sip of his fresh-pressed green juice. “For two reasons: one, you’re too self-absorbed to have ever been married and two, the restaurant isn’t a ‘slop-shop’ anymore. It’s actually pretty successful, Tina had some great ideas when she stepped up to help run it with Bob. Zeke, too.”

Theron ignored the jab about being un-marry-able. One botched fake-relationship mission and she would never hear the end of it. “Spare me the gory details, what’s my alias?”

Rudy placed a green folder on the small cafe table. “Lucy Sullivan. You just moved into town after a failed career as an art collector, which explains both your worldly and thieving knowledge, should you slip up.”

“I never slip up.”

Rudy leveled his gaze at her and snorted. “Right, and I look good in pastels. Anyway, you’re going back to Seymour Bay, your childhood home, spending time with family you haven’t seen in ages….I just wanted to play it safe.”

Theron-now-Lucy stared him from over the top of the folder. “Fine. What else?” 

She sipped her cappuccino as she perused the file, asking only because she liked to keep Rudy talking. 

“You’re originally from Florida, you have a degree in art history from the University of Florida, you used to work for a museum after your tour of fine worldly antiques abroad.”

Lucy resisted the urge to vomit at the mention of spending so much time in Florida, even if it was fake time. Florida, like Canada, was a very specific ring of hell she wanted nothing to do with. 

“However,” Rudy continued. “You were fired from the museum after some pieces of the collection were lost under your supervision.” 

“So I’m just another idiot from Florida?”

“No, you’re someone who’s down on their luck, morally ambiguous, and desperate to stay out of trouble, capeesh?” Rudy popped the last cherry tomato on his plate into his mouth. 

“Mmhmm,” Lucy hummed, setting the file down. “Naturally, trouble just seems to find me though.”

“That’s a lie and you know it. You have a nose specifically tuned for trouble. I’m only going to ask you this once, L, for my own sanity: please stay out of trouble. Being back in the states put you at risk. Every crime family in the tri-state area would be thrilled to sink their claws into Louise Belcher. And don’t count on help from the feds, the CIA and FBI aren’t your biggest fans either.” 

Lucy waggled her eyebrows playfully. “If the CIA doesn’t like me, then why does its best fixer take time out of his very busy schedule to smuggle a troublemaker back into their territory?”

She taunted him, holding the integrity of his job in front of him on a swinging pendulum. He risked everything for her—she wanted him to understand that she knew the stakes, but a smaller part of her wished he would just walk away, save himself the trouble of her existence. “I’ll stay out of trouble on one condition.”

“This wasn’t a negotiation, I had one request, it’s—“

“—I can’t be from Florida,” she interrupted. “It’s the worst state ever.”

Rudy cracked a smile. “If I add alligator wrestling to your background, would it convince you?”

“No, but it’s a start.” 

“Goodbye agent Theron,” Rudy said, standing up and fishing euros out of his wallet. “And good luck Lucy Sullivan, private citizen.” 

She gave him a lazy salute and chugged the rest of her cappuccino. 

“See you on the other side,” he said, his voice soft.

“See you in hell, kid.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to my beta readers, Joia and Noah, whom I love with the passion of a million burning suns or something equally sappy.


	4. The Sister Who Loved Me

Shadows greeted Tina as she shuffled to the bathroom just after 2 am, her bladder on the verge of bursting. When she reached the toilet, she nearly moaned with relief. But in her haste, she neglected to turn on any lights, something she regretted when she heard a cabinet in the kitchen creak.

Pulling up her purple cotton pajama bottoms and splashing her hands with cool water from the sink, she moved to investigate.

“Daniel?” Tina called, hoping her oldest son hadn’t gotten out of bed to raid the pantry. She swore that boy took more after her own brother Gene than either her or Zeke. 

More shuffling in the kitchen combined with a lack of response made Tina suspicious. Either Daniel was trying very hard not to get caught or there was somebody there that shouldn’t have been. Tina moved hesitantly toward the kitchen, every step across the aged floorboards taking an eternity. 

She flipped on the lights, ready to usher Daniel away from the yogurt-covered pretzels and back into bed. But the kitchen was empty. All of the cabinets tightly closed and untouched. 

“Daniel?” Tina called again, tilting her head back to look down the hall. A flash of movement in the living room caught her eye.

“Daniel, this isn’t funny, mister,” Tina urged, charging toward the living room. She hesitated by his bedroom door, partially ajar. Peeking in, she gasped at the sight of Daniel sleeping under a mess of quilts and soft blankets. 

“Uhh,” she nervously moaned, eyes twitching back to the living room. She debated waking Zeke up or grabbing a baseball bat from the coat closet, but each of those things would take too long. Whoever was in the house could murder her entire family in the time it would take her to go down the stairs. She squared her shoulders and pepped herself up. She was a strong, independent mamma bear. She could handle anything. 

Grabbing an empty wine bottle from the recycling bin near the top of the stairs, she rested against the corner just before the living room. 

“Whoever is in here…” she vaguely threatened, cursing her wobbly voice. “Know that I have a wine bottle and I’m not afraid to use it!” 

Tina finally turned the corner and stepped into the dark living room, the empty bottle in her slightly raised hand. 

Shadows moved in her periphery and she blindly swung. The bottle whizzed through the air but made no connection. She swung again, wishing her eyes were better adjusted the darkness; only the streetlights pouring through the windows provided any semblance of light. She swung the bottle again, but her wrist connected with something instead. Fingers encircled her arm, the wine bottle fell to the carpeted floor, and another arm wrapped around the top of her chest, pinning her against the intruder.

She whimpered in fear.

“Jesus, T,” a voice replied. “You thought an empty wine bottle was going to take out a home invader?”

Tina whipped her head around to look at the dark figure holding on to her. “Louise?!”

But Louise didn’t reply. She released Tina and stalked over to the floor lamp in the corner of the living room. She flicked on the light and Tina was struck by the sight. 

She looked  _ so different.  _ Gone was the Belcher family black hair, replaced with snow white hair that barely grazed her collar bones and a dark hoodie that covered the rest of her head. She wasn’t nearly as spindly as she’d been in her youth either, her knobby knees were strong now, her button nose sharp. Purple bruising colored the tender flesh beneath her eyes offsetting her pallid complexion. Gone was the girl with the pink bunny ears. Gone was the girl she recognized as her sister. The woman standing in front of her, though vaguely familiar in form, was an utter stranger. 

And yet this stranger wasted no time plopping onto the couch and hoisting her sneakered feet onto the stained coffee table. She sighed and closed her eyes, exhaustion melting her into the cushions.

“What happened to picking you up at the airport?” Tina asked. 

“I told you I could take care of myself,” she muttered, then opened her eyes to look at the wine bottle on the ground Tina had tried to crack her head with. “Do you have any full bottles of wine around her?”

Tina took a deep breath. “It’s the middle of the night, Louise—“

“—Lucy.”

“What?” 

“I’m not here as Louise, it wouldn’t be safe. My name is Lucy Sullivan. For now.”

Tina waited for her to continue. “Are you not going to explain?”

“Not unless you have wine,” she quipped, closing her eyes again and leaning her head against the back of the couch.

“Fine,” Tina said with a sigh. “One glass.”

“Whatever you say, T,” she said with a wicked grin. “But please, for the love of god, tell me it’s red.”

…

It was, in fact, not red wine, but some miserable Rosé blend. Still, Lucy poured another glass for herself. Tina eyeing her suspiciously over some herbal tea she’d made that smelled like a foot. It made Lucy’s nose wrinkle every time the steam wafted her way across the wooden table. 

“So…” Lucy drew, looking around the kitchen of her childhood home. The walls were still a sunny yellow, the cabinets green and worn. The only new things were the modern refrigerator and the series of photos decorating it, photos of Tina’s kids, Tina and Zeke’s wedding, Gene’s early performance days. Photos of all the things she hadn’t been a part of. It was like looking into the life of a character on tv, it all took on a very fictional, temporary feeling. 

“Thank you for coming. I really didn’t think you would.”

Lucy nodded, pretended the jab didn’t sting. “Anything for you, T.”

“Catch me up on your life,” Tina insisted, picking up the white mug to take another sip. “I want to know everything.”

“If I told you everything,” she said, twisting the wine glass between her fingers. “The FBI would bust that door down by sunrise and I just don’t feel like murdering a bunch of agents I’ve been to company picnics with.” 

Tina blinked, processed Lucy’s threat of violence. She took a sip of her scalding tea, sending the foot smell across the table and straight into Lucy’s nostrils. “Okay, what can you tell me?” 

Lucy sighed. “I’m not here to catch up, T. I’m here to help. I’m here to see Dad.”

“Oh,” she said, her mouth quirking as if she were pretending to not be offended. “Well, I appreciate that. The restaurant has been super busy the past few years, but with the rising rent in town it’s been difficult to have enough overhead to hire extra help.”

“Mr. Fischoeder is still…” Lucy considered her words carefully, not wanting to come across as too brutal to Tina. She’d already nearly assaulted her in the living room earlier, so she felt like she was walking on thin ice. “A landlord?”

“Yes, he still owns more than half of this town, but he’s getting old.”

“Ah,” she said, satisfied that both of her questions were answered. Even though he was a capitalist menace, Lucy couldn’t help but admire his eclectic style. As a child, she’d always promised herself that she’d grow up to be just as mysterious, wealthy, and kooky as Mr. Fisch. But now that her life had taken a slightly different path, the only thing the two could possibly have in common was their loneliness.

“So you still live here?” Lucy asked, changing the subject. 

Tina nodded. “We moved back home when Dad got sick. Zeke and I used to have a walk-up across town, but we’ve been living here for so long I don’t think the kids even remember it.”

“About your children…”

“What about them?” 

Lucy chugged more wine and poured a fresh serving into her glass, hesitating as she considered how exactly to navigate this topic. The issue was that she wasn’t great with kids, not even when she was one, but she promised herself she was going to give this a real try and that included not being an asshole to Tina or her kids.

She went with a diplomatic approach. “Tell me about them.”

Tina’s eyes widened behind her black framed glasses. “Well, Daniel is my oldest, he’s 10, and his younger sister Scout just turned 6 last month. And our youngest hasn’t been born yet.”

Lucy’s eyes flicked to Tina’s stomach, obscured behind the kitchen table. Her mouth went dry and a flush bloomed across her skin. As agent Theron she’d prevented nuclear holocaust with the blood poisoning, she’d delivered war criminals to international courts with weeping bullet wounds in her thigh, she’d stolen paintings worth more than the GDP of several small countries combined, yet when confronted with her estranged older sister telling her she was pregnant with her third child, Lucy had no idea what to say. 

Lucy chugged another glass of wine. “So I almost beat up my pregnant sister? I feel bad now.”

“It’s fine, Loui-Lucy, I know you’d never hurt me,” Tina insisted, her hand reaching across the table to give Lucy’s hand a reassuring squeeze, but she shoved her hands under the table before Tina could even get close. 

“Is it too late to say congratulations?”

“You don’t have to pretend,” she said with a shrug. “Kids aren’t your thing, it’s cool.”

Lucy ground her teeth, wishing Tina wasn’t being so damn agreeable, it just made her feel worse. She was used to fist fights and gunpowder and people pissing their pants at the very sight of her, but this family home with glittery kid art work hung on the walls and crayons lingering in corners of rooms was utterly horrifying. “T, I have to be honest with you. I am genuinely here to help, but I won’t be here for long, I have to get back to work eventually.”

“I expected as much.”

Damn agreeable sister. Lucy clenched her jaw, tightened and loosened her fists. “And while I’m fine with getting to know your kids and reconnect with you and Dad, maybe even mom, I think it would be best to keep things casual.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for safety reasons your sister is legally dead, which means that you can’t tell anyone who I really am, including your kids.”

“So what should I tell them?”

“ I don’t know, I’m an old school chum or something. This way when I do leave again, they won’t be asking where their aunt Louise is,” Lucy said with a wrinkled nose. 

“They already wonder where their aunt Louise is.” 

“Please don’t make this difficult,” Lucy groaned, taking a swig straight from the Rosé bottle. “I’m happy to be here, I’m happy to help. Put me to work, give me the mop and bucket or make me clean out the grease trap, just don’t expect us to be one big happy family again.”

Tina took another sip of her tea, considered Lucy’s words. “Fine, on one condition.”

“Why does everyone keep trying to impose rules on me?” She muttered under her breath, remembering her conversation with Rudy in Amsterdam just a day ago. 

“If you leave again, will you at least give me a warning?” Tina asked. Lucy sighed through her nose, wishing she’d never gotten on the damn plane here. 

“I will let you know about my travel plans as far in advance as I can,” she promised, just wanting to get off the topic. “Now is there still a cot in the basement? I need a solid two hours of sleep before I deal with the incompetency of the general American public again.” 

“Basement’s all yours.”

“Great,” she said, the feet of the chair scraping against the linoleum floor with a hideous squeal. 

“One more thing,” Tina said. 

Lucy paused by the door jam.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she said with a sad smile. Lucy reciprocated the melancholy grin and twisted to leave.

“Eventually, you won’t be,” Lucy replied too quietly for Tina to hear, the neck of the wine bottle between her fingers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!!! <3 And don't fret, Logan *finally* shows up in the next chapter!


	5. Kitchen Royale

The tinny whine of an 80’s ballad woke Lucy from a dreamless sleep. Her eyes cracked open just as someone turned the annoying record up and began rhythmically drumming on plastic containers. Lucy glanced at the digital watch on her wrist, contemplated the earliest in the morning she had ever murdered someone. 7:16am blinked at her, far too late to beat any personal records.

With a pained groan, Lucy rolled off the stiff canvas cot, hissed at her bruised ribs as she folded the itchy wool blanket with military precision. She grabbed her backpack full of clothes and a toothbrush and climbed the rickety basement steps, pausing to listen to the commotion in the kitchen before opening the door.

A male voice crooned, “Welllll there is a houuuuse in New Orleans… They CALL THE RISING SUUUUN.”

Lucy opened the door and nearly collided with the serenader. 

“Whoa girl!” The voice shouted with alarm. “Watch were you swing doors, I’ve got delicate eggs in my arms.”

“Zeke,” Lucy greeted cooly, narrowing her eyes on his brown, mullet-shaped hair barely contained by a hairnet. The song on the radio changed to “Heat Of The Moment” and Lucy felt confident in her judgement. 

“Oh hey Louise, T told me you got in late last night. Scared the pickles out of her, she said!” Zeke punctuated with a boisterous laugh that made Lucy grind her teeth. He pointed vaguely to her face. “Who knocked your lights out?”

It was far too early for Zeke’s obnoxious sense of humor and blaring rock music. 

“Doesn’t matter, I killed him,” Lucy said with a shrug. “And it’s Lucy.”

Zeke didn’t even get a chance to respond before she slipped into the employee bathroom and audibly locked the door.

“Right, right,” she heard Zeke say on the other side of the door. “Secret spy life…Huh. That’ll take some getting used to.”

Lucy ran her hands under the cool water, pressed her frigid fingers in the tender, still-bruised flesh beneath her eyes. The internal pep talk already started to wind up within her.

“Do this for Tina,” she said to herself. “Atone for your sins. Don’t be an asshole. Live through this and you can spend the rest of your life getting drunk on a beach far, far away from here.”

Lucy flushed the toilet and changed into a cleanish pair of black track pants and a white tank top. She hadn’t worn color for anything besides a mission in…years, honestly. Black and white were just so much more simple to manage. No fuss, only efficiency. The child who wore lime green dresses paired with pink bunny ears was buried so deep within her, smothered beneath heaps of black and white clothing.

A gentle knock sounded at the door.

“Uh…Lucy?” Tina asked hesitantly. 

Lucy took one last look in the mirror and found that she still didn’t recognize the face staring back at her. Sure, the features were familiar, familiar in the same way an echo called back: a ripple of the past but warped, skewed from its original form. Hollow. Lucy was reduced to an echo of a past self. Ice white hair with black roots peeking through. Brown eyes smudged with bruising and fatigue. A frown permanently etched into her thin lips. Gaunt chin sticking out from a sharp face. She’d been telling herself that Louise was dead for so long, she never thought that one day, she might actually believe it, that one day she would look in the mirror and truly not know who was staring back.

“Coming,” she finally called, shoved the clothes she slept in back into her backpack, and unlocked the door.

…

Turned out, cutting onions, tomatoes, and heads of lettuce was actually quite relaxing. Lucy almost fell into a trance slicing produce with deliciously sharp, well-balanced knives. Even Zeke’s obnoxious rock music became a dull roar of white noise. And when Tina would pass by, placing an unconscious, motherly hand on Lucy’s shoulder, and asking her to grab something from the basement or wipe down a table, she would go without hesitation. 

The mind-numbing work was almost nice. Almost. Just after opening, two dark-haired children crashed into the restaurant screaming, throwing bang-snaps to the ground. Lucy instantly clutched a knife in her right hand and slithered against the wall of an upright fridge in the corner of the cramped kitchen, fearing it was the sound of gunfire.

At the grill, Zeke burst into a fit of laughter. “Afraid of kids, ninja-star?”

Lucy shot him a murderous glare, begrudgingly setting the knife down as she realized she overreacted. 

“Is she here?!”

“The new girl!! Does she like ghouls? What about zombies?”

“Leave it alone with the zombies, Scout!” The boy retorted, then whispered, “they might hear us!”

The children shouted over each other excitedly, mimicking the exact fervor Lucy shared with her siblings decades ago. She swore one of them even sounded just like Gene…

Tina shushed the children and sat them in a far corner booth as Lucy spied on the three of them from the small kitchen window.

“You know, they’ve been asking about their mysterious aunt Louise ever since they uncovered a box of your old stuff in the basement,” Zeke said, pointing a spatula dripping with grease in Lucy’s direction. 

“Well, for everyone’s sake I hope you told them I died in a spectacular blaze or I fell down an elevator shaft onto some bullets.”

Zeke laughed again, carelessly. Lucy didn’t like much about Tina’s husband, but the way he seemed to find everything humorous was growing on her. She admired the fact that it felt like there was nothing too serious for him, nothing that couldn’t be smoothed over with a friendly chuckle. 

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “T always insisted on telling them you were fighting international crime.”

“Subtle.”

“Just sayin’, if you told them who you really were, they’d probably fall to your feet in admiration, ninja-star. Scout especially.”

Lucy hummed noncommittally but snuck another peek at Tina’s small brown-haired daughter. Her blue eyes were wide as full moons as she spied back on Lucy.

“There she is!” Scout screamed, pointing a tiny finger at her.

“You’ve been spotted, girl! But be careful, her nails are sharp and she bites anyone who gets too close.”

“A girl after my own heart,” Lucy murmured as she untied her tomato-juice stained apron and left the kitchen, the door swinging freely behind her.

With her chin high, Lucy approached the booth containing Tina and her stranger-children. She’d mentally prepared herself for this all morning, deciding she would treat them like she treated every new stranger: formally. She extended a hand, various scars glinting under the restaurant’s fluorescent lights. 

“Hello, children. I’m Lucy Sullivan.”

Scout and her brother Daniel’s eyes bounced between Lucy’s outstretched hand and her bruised face.

An admiring “whoa” passed Scout’s lips as Tina watched on nervously, chewing her lip like it paid the bills. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Sullivan,” Daniel said, reaching a thin hand out to shake Lucy’s. He looked and sounded so much like a young Tina, but the various stains on his jean shorts and blue t-shirt, and his bowl-cut black hair instantly reminded her of Gene. Lucy had to blink as she stared at him, to remind herself she wasn’t still 9 years old.

“Likewise, Sir Daniel,” Lucy replied, straight-faced, but Daniel giggle anyway. 

“She knows my name!” He shouted enthusiastically to his sister across the table.

“Do you know  _ my _ name?” Scout questioned.

“Of course, Scout.”

“Are you psychic?” The little girl asked. “A mind reader? A mutant? Maybe you’re a witch!”

“Scout,” Tina chided, but Lucy beamed at the accusation. 

“I’m not a witch, but I have dabbled in Necromancy,” Lucy said and began to scoot into the cracked, red vinyl booth to sit next to Daniel. “The ghosts in the basements told me your names.”

Both of children’s eyes widened — Daniel’s in fear, Scout’s in amazement. 

“I told you there were ghosts in the basement!” She accused, wagging a knowing finger at her brother.

“From the funeral home next door,” Lucy added with a knowing nod.

“She gets it! Thank you, Ms. Sullivan,” the little girl said. 

“Call me Lu,” Lucy said replied with a satisfied grin. Maybe she fit in here better than she thought. Maybe children weren’t exclusively sniveling brats. 

Tina mirrored Lucy’s self-satisfied smile toward her children as they hotly debated ghosts and crematoriums. 

The bells over the front door jingled as a new patron walked in.

“Be with you in a minute,” Lucy called unconsciously. _ Oh god,  _ how quickly her childhood caught back up to her. 

“Oh, no rush,” the voice replied.

“Doc!” Zeke called excitedly from the kitchen, familiarity coating his tone. Good. Zeke could deal with the incoming customer, Lucy wanted to hear the children argue about ghosts more. And the respite from standing felt nice on her aching feet. She felt thirty-two years old the most in bones and joints, which ached more than they used to in her youth. Too many shattered kneecaps and cracked ribs from run-ins with burly men’s fists had left her with a body more battered than than the ferris wheel at the wharf. 

Tina turned toward the newcomer at the counter and waved. “Hey Logan, the usual?”

Ice splintered down Lucy’s spine, the smile on her face melting into a scowl. 

“Logan?” Lucy questioned, begrudgingly tugging her gaze away from the children to land on her childhood enemy. 

He looked so different from what Lucy remembered, but also she only remembered how he made her feel: small, weak, all things she hated. His irritatingly blond hair had darkened and his jaw was dusted with a spatter of matching stubble. He was taller, bulkier, but still youthful, an adult wearing the face of a younger boy she hated.

The sense of betrayal that Tina and Zeke would so kindly speak to Logan burned bright in Lucy’s stomach, but not as bad as when the kids left her for his company. The children crawled beneath the table to get out of the booth, swarming Logan in an instant. More eager to see him, Lucy bitterly noted, than they were to meet her. 

“Did you bring us anything?”

“Yeah, any cool cat skulls?”

Lucy felt hot. Uncomfortably warm, like her very insides were achieving supernova. She worried briefly her flesh might melt off her sweltering bones. Her feet were suddenly itchy, her muscles tightened like a snake ready to strike as heat boiled in her veins.

“Lu?” Tina asked softly, placing a cool hand on Lucy’s arm. She jumped at the touch, snatched her arm away and recoiled. Tumbling out of the booth, Lucy could barely find purchase on the uneven floor as blood pounded in her ears. 

“I can’t—I can’t,” she stuttered. “I can’t do this. I can’t be trapped here, I can’t…I’m sorry T, I thought I could—I just…can’t.”

Lucy scrambled out of the dining room, through the kitchen and out the back door. She was sprinting down the alley long before Zeke had a chance to call after her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and for all of the kudos I've received so far—you guys are the best!!!


	6. Dr. Won't-Take-No-For-An-Answer

Lucy Sullivan—formally known as Louise Belcher—was good at many things: lock-picking, witty sarcastic remarks, being a general agent of chaos, speaking her mind. But she absolutely excelled at running away from her problems. If they gave out Nobel prizes for advancements in avoidance, she would win every year without fail. Running away was much easier than confronting her problems, much easier than apologizing, much easier than looking  _ Logan _ , her mortal enemy, in the face after the way Tina so kindly greeted him. 

Lucy was also pretty good at physically running. She hated it so much as a child, schemed her way out of gym class like it was a personal vendetta just to avoid having to run the mile. But when was recruited by the CIA as a teenager, they threw her into bootcamp that whipped her into physical shape. Five mile runs before dawn, wading in frigid water for hours, and doing one-armed pull-ups until her shoulder dislocated were just normal activities in her training, tame practically. She put herself through so much bodily torture that the simple act of running was like relaxing in a hot tub, a soothing heat diffusing through her muscles, her heart-rate like a soft vibration in her ribs. When she ran, her mind disconnected and she was all physical sensation and gasps. In fact, she was so distracted by the sound of her feet smacking the ground that she didn’t even realize when the terrain changed and she found herself at the remnants of the old Wharf. 

It must’ve closed about a decade ago in favor of the new pier built about a mile south down the beach. Mr Fischoeder’s negligence for the establishment was still on full-display, many of the rides and booths left to rust and rot under the blistering sun and corrosive sea spray. Lucy ducked her head under the caution tape and slipped past the poorly locked metal gate, yearning for a quiet place. A few gulls fought over the bloated corpse of a fish washed up on a shore, their argument interrupted only by the lush swells of water crashing against the supports of the Wharf.

She paused at the rickety, sea-rotted railing overlooking the blue-green ocean, her fingers flirting with splinters and rusty nails. 

“Lucy Belcher?” 

Lucy turned to find a familiar elderly man behind her in an ostentatious electric scooter, the entire thing plated in cheap, brassy gold. 

“Kevin Fischoeder,” she replied, fully knowing his first name was actually Calvin.

“Ah, how wondrous it is to see ghosts more frequently in my golden age.”

Lucy narrowed her eyes on the old man, surprised by how unchanged his features were. His left eye was still obscured by a white patch that matched his white suit, complemented by a neat lilac tie. It had been over sixteen years since Lucy had seen him, and she had to guess that he was somewhere between ninety and a hundred years old. His skin was puckered with wrinkles and age spots, but he was still upright in his scooter, the outline of a pistol peeking out from a cuff around his ankle. 

“Come sit with me, Lucy, enjoy the sunset.”

There was no bench to speak of next to Calvin, so she folded herself onto the ground, perched her feet on the lower part of the railing with an audible groan. She didn’t even bother to comment on the fact that it was mid-day and the late-spring sun blistered directly above them. She checked her phone again. Still no call or text from Rudy, even though she dialed him the minute she dashed out of the restaurant, leaving a embarrassingly desperate voicemail for him to come pick her up.

“Expecting a call?”

“An extraction, actually.”

Calvin chuckled. “On another mission, Little Spy?”

Lucy stiffened. Did he actually know what she was or was his senility just playing itself out? She sent a text to Rudy, a flurry of letters and angry remarks about a potential  _ compromise _ and that now was absolutely not the time to be ignoring her. Was Rudy punishing her with his silence? He was usually very good at responding back to her quickly, carrying a cellphone around with him as religiously as his asthma inhaler. 

“You know, you were always my favorite Belcher child—and that’s saying a lot, Gene was a very charming presence.”

Lucy snorted as she considered her showman brother. “Charming is one word for it. Fart-monster is another. I’m surprised you still remember who I am, honestly.”

“I never forget a person with potential.”

Lucy was surprised by his lucidity, surprised that he could still hold a competent conversation given his advanced age and general disregard for anything he considered low-class. She didn’t put much faith in it though, it would likely be short-lived. A

“So, youngest Belcher, what brings you back to this depressing little town by the sea?”

Lucy watched some seagulls land on the churning green sea beneath them, considered the merits of being honest with her family’s landlord. 

“Oh, well, this town has amazing seafood and I’ve been craving trash-fed shrimp.”

“I’m a lobster man myself.”

Lucy made a noise somewhere between agreement and a bitter laugh. 

“It doesn’t matter to me why you’re back in town, Little Spy, but you seem like someone who needs purpose.”

“Is that your professional opinion?” She asked leaning back, folding her hands beneath her head and closing her eyes. She didn’t want to see the pity written on his face. She didn’t want anyone’s pity. She  _ wanted _ to be left alone. 

“I was quite the wanderer myself when I was younger, I recognize the signs of a wanderer returning to their home and not knowing what to do next—living without purpose. Everyone needs purpose, even rich people!”

“I know what I want to do next,” she rebuked. “I want to leave this ‘ _ depressing little town by the sea’ _ and never come back.”

Calvin rustled for something in his pockets. “Then why haven’t you?” 

“My ride hasn’t called back,” she replied, cracking an eye open and vaguely gesturing to the cellphone clutched in her fingers.

“You put your escape in someone else’s hands? I expected more from you, Little Spy,” he said, punctuated with a ‘tsk, tsk.’

“I don’t need your sass, old man, I could toss you into the ocean without a soul witnessing. And I would ride off into the ‘sunset’ on your souped-up electric scooter.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he said, waggling his overgrown white eyebrows. 

Lucy placed a cupped hand over her eye to shut out the sun, irritation tightening her neck and shoulder muscles. She did not miss being talked down to by adults like this, that’s why she left the CIA in the first place all those years ago.

“Can I speak candidly?”

“How have you been speaking so far?”

Calvin laughed indulgently. “I like you, Lucy, but you and I both know you’re here by choice. So I’m here to offer you something to make that choice to be here better.”

Lucy waited for him to continue, raising her dark eyebrows as Calvin grabbed a handful of breadcrumbs from a plastic baggy, limply throwing it at the disinterested seagulls. They didn’t even flinch at the pathetic toss, their appetite was more keen for flesh. 

“I have a proposition. You have a clever mind and a perpetual need to stay busy, to distract yourself from your crippling self-isolation—”

“—That is not true!” Lucy interrupted. 

“I’m not here to argue, Little Spy. I’m here to offer you distraction, from one self-isolator to another.” 

Lucy chewed the inside of her cheek until the bright tang of blood splashed across her tongue.

“I have odd jobs around town,” Calvin continued. “A petty theft here, a little intimidation there. You won’t be getting your hands dirty, per se, but maybe a little grubby.”

Lucy snorted at the notion. Her hands were more than dirty from her past; there was a time when they were nearly permanently slick with blood, her fingernails stained crimson no matter how much bleach she used to scrub them. Eventually she invested in weekly manicures, sticking to exclusively dark nail polish so she’d never see the consequences of her actions. 

“I’ll pay you handsomely, of course. You can name your price, but I already know how much you have in all of your off-shore bank accounts, so don’t get too cocky.”

“Give me your estate, then,” she challenged, a smirk on her thin lips.

“In due time, Little Spy, but I love your jokes!” He enthused, patting her on the head like she was nine, not thirty-two. “I’ll send the details to that strange little magic-box in your hand.”

“It’s a burner, good luck getting my number.” She had no idea how Calvin knew she was in this line of work, but given his extensive financial profile and general eccentricity, she didn’t put it past him. She really wish Rudy would stop ignoring her so they could solve this mystery together. 

“So combative,” he purred. “I love your spunk. If I ever deigned to sully myself with heirs, I would’ve wanted them to be just as feisty and distrusting as you. Regardless, I know all about your Louvre heist, you think I can’t find your burner?”

Heat climbed up Lucy’s cheeks. The Louvre heist was more than classified, the files were destroyed by Lucy herself, tossed into a ancient fireplace in Vienna where she warmed herself under their burning glow while nursing a broken clavicle. 

“I already have a job,” she said, jutting her chin out defiantly. 

“At that slop-shop? That’s not a job, that’s….anesthesia. This will be real, honest work.”

Lucy glanced at the dark chipped polish on her fingernails, clenched her hand into a fist. The finger she broke a week ago hissed in protest before turning to a dull ache. “Will it be dangerous?”

“At times.”

Lucy sat up. It wouldn’t solve all of her problems. It wouldn’t get Bob out of the hospital. It wouldn’t banish Logan from the restaurant permanently. It wouldn’t mend her relationship with Tina. But it would be something…a distraction at best, something to do besides rot away in this withering town until it was socially acceptable to leave without a fuss. She couldn’t imagine having to spend all of her evenings in her childhood home and play house with her sister and her family. And Lucy wasn’t a workaholic by any means, but she loved to stay busy. 

“And if I told you no?” She asked, despite wanting to say the opposite. 

“I would be very put out, but I’m sure I could bribe a cop around here to do my dirty work, but they’re so inefficient.”

Lucy snorted in agreement. “I’ll think about it, old man. You can text me details and I’ll decide if I’m available.”

She would still have to talk to Rudy, of course, which was why she couldn’t give him a definitive yes yet. 

Calvin smiled briefly before his eyebrows puckered in confusion. “What’s a ‘text?’”

“CALVIN FISCHOEDER WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE?!”

Lucy and Mr. Fischoeder’s head snapped to the screaming voice behind them. A frantic woman with bottle-dyed red hair dressed in eggplant-colored scrubs ran toward them, a phone pressed to one ear. She was younger than Lucy, with a wide forehead and eyes too small for her face. 

“I have been looking all over town for you! How did you get out of the mansion?” The woman asked, a nurse, if Lucy had to guess. Maybe his hired help? 

“I told you, woman, I’m a perpetual motion machine! I cannot be trapped in that dusty coffin for the rest of my life.”

“Calvin, you’re a fall-risk, you can’t just leave without someone to keep you safe.”

“Bah!” Mr. Fischoeder brushed. “Leave me alone.” 

“Who is this?” The woman asked, vaguely motioning to Lucy.

“ _ ‘This’ _ is leaving now, thank you,” Lucy said.

“Talk to you soon, Little Spy! Just as soon as I ditch this wench.”

“Wench?!” The woman screeched, her voice like nails scraping through her eardrums. Lucy slipped through the dilapidated remnants of the wharf before she her ears could suffer any more damage. 


	7. Mission Impossible: Fallout of Consequences

Lucy procrastinated returning to the restaurant, spending the majority of the afternoon and early evening at the new Wharf. The pier was a distorted memory of the old one, like they ripped out the original Wharf and transplanted it a mile away but all of the previously dilapidated rides that stood as a monument to her childhood were replaced with shiny, ostentatiously bright and safe rides. Except this time, Lucy felt like the rejected organ as she tried orient herself with the new Wharf. 

The carnies that smelled like cigarettes and gasoline before, now smelled of cotton candy and fresh lattes. Was there a chain coffee shop nearby or did they merely sweat espresso and foamed milk? Lucy enjoyed the time to wander, to run her fingers over sun-heated metal, to listen to conversations of people she’d never see again, to put one foot in front of the other without aggressively searching over her shoulder for enemies. Regardless, she still went out of her way to lift a pocket knife from the lost and found box at guest services.

She realized now how futile her attempt to escape had truly been. Seeing Logan was jarring, yes, but she’d been jarred worse before. And yet when she dipped out of the restaurant, all of her preservation instincts disappeared, she didn’t even grab her go-bag for crying out loud. What was all of that highly-secretive, tax-payer expensive training worth if she couldn’t even use it in a situation where her pride—not even her life—was in danger? She felt like a poor excuse for a highly-trained assassin at this moment; a pathetic excuse at that for all of the desperate texts she’d sent her handler, Rudy. 

Rudy was more than forgiving when he called her back though, talking her off of the cliff she shackled herself to. 

_ “Take a deep breath, L,” _ he said, the second she answered his call. 

“Bite me,” she snapped. Anger was always the easier emotion for her to feel. Anger cleared her mind, anger warmed her belly, anger made her feel big and powerful and like she could squash anything beneath her feet. Anger made her feel alive. 

_ “Are you still in crisis mode or are you actually prepared to have a functioning-adult conversation?”  _

But maybe Rudy didn’t deserve the brunt of her anger. She tried to take it down a few notches, moving under the glow of the ferris wheel and prayed a kid wouldn’t spew funnel cake on her head. She always loved this ride as kid, though the fact that it provided no thrills meant she would never admit it. But the ability to climb high above the Wharf and Seymour’s Bay to look over the tiny seaside town made her feel like the world bent to her order, not the other way around. 

Lucy sighed through her nose, took a sip out of an overly-sweet soda she stole from a counter in the food tent area. “Talk to me, Rudy-Rudes, I’m going crazy.”

_ “What happened?”  _

“Didn’t you get my texts?”

_ “All nine-hundred of them, yes,” _ he said carefully. Lucy rolled her eyes at the exaggeration. She sent maybe a little over a hundred. Maximum.  _ “But I’d like to hear from you anyway.” _

“Did you know Logan still lived in town?” Lucy asked, unable to keep the acid out of her tone. She didn’t want to snap at Rudy, but the anger she thought would melt away under the fluorescent bulbs of the ferris wheel was still very present. 

_ “Yes, I know the identity of everyone within a five-mile radius of the restaurant. And he doesn’t just live in-town, he runs the clinic next door.” _

Her nostrils flared and heat prickled her skin. “And you didn’t think to mention it?”

A small girl holding a periwinkle bear caught sight of Lucy’s fury and quickly tugged on her mother’s hand. Lucy curled her lip at the child and turned away before she caused a scene. 

_ “Would it have impacted your decision either way?” _

“Some warning would’ve been nice!” She whisper-yelled. 

_ “Warning: Logan works and lives next door.” _

Lucy barked a bitter laugh. “Little late for that.”

_ “Then what do you want?” _

Lucy chewed her lip. What did she want? What could possibly make any of this better? “Information. I want every file, every scrap of intel you have on Logan. I want to know about his last dentist appointment, his financial standings, weaknesses. Everything.”

Rudy hesitated on the other line, covered the speaker for a moment to mutter something to someone else.  _ “Done.” _

Lucy expected more of a rebuttal from Rudy, but the soft ping of a classified email vibrated the phone pressed against her sweaty ear. It was a start.

_ “Is that all?” _

“No,” she said, switching the phone to her other ear. “Fischoeder spotted me immediately, knew who I was.”

_ “Ah. I thought this might come up.” _

“Great, Rudy. Why does it feel like your purposefully keeping secrets from me?”

He ignored the jab.  _ “What did he want?” _

“To do jobs for him? I don’t know, he’s a very old man now complete with a handler of his own.”

_ “Sammy the nurse you mean?” _

“Oh my god, Rudy, how do you know everything and I know nothing?”

_ “It’s my job. But what kind of work was Calvin offering?” _

“Petty stuff. Thefts. Intimidation. Why?” 

Rudy was silent as he considered this, save for the distant sound of a clacking keyboard in the background. “ _ Hmm, I think you should just let him down easy, but keep him off your trail.” _

“He said he knew about the Louvre heist, might be hard to keep him off the trail if he’s already sniffing around,” she pointed out, taking another sip of the soda only to find it disappointingly empty. She threw it into an already overflowing trashcan with canny precision, attracting the attention of a dude-bro that cheered her on. She flipped him off before sneaking behind the booth of a rigged game. 

Rudy groaned.  _ “Do you want me to send a team to take care of it?” _

Offense burned in Lucy’s cheek. Did Rudy think she couldn’t handle it? 

“No,” she said nonchalantly, punctuating it with a bored sounding sigh. “He’s a harmless old man, nothing to worry about.”

_ “Okay, I’m trusting you. Don’t compromise yourself before you’ve had a chance to do what you came here to accomplish.” _

“Remind me what that was again,” she said with a smirk.

_ “Go home. Apologize to Tina, Zeke, and the kids. Try again tomorrow. Go see your father.” _

“So she  _ did _ call you,” Lucy accused, completely unsurprised. 

_ “The second you bolted, yeah.” _

“I see how it is, you answer Tina’s calls but when I psycho-call in a panic suddenly I’m only worth your voicemail.”

_ “You are an assassin-for-hire meant to handle even the tightest pressure,” _ Rudy reminded her.  _ “Your sister is an innocent civilian merely concerned about you. And her kids. You upset them more than her, so maybe bring a bribe.” _

“Send me more files on Bush and I’ll bring the kids a bucket of candy.” That was something kids still liked, right? Her own childhood was centered around her obsession with candy and Japanese figurines. And ninja stars. And pyrotechnics. And the odd switchblade. Okay so maybe she wasn’t the best authority on what normal kids liked...but maybe Tina’s kids weren’t normal. She’d have to spend more time with them to figure out what they did like.

_ “I’ve sent you everything I have,”  _ he said, like it was obvious. 

“Can I work for Calvin then?” Lucy asked, chewing on her lip.

_ “If you want me to have a premature heart attack, then go right ahead.” _

“You’re being dramatic.”

_ “ _ I’m _ being dramatic? You’re practically the patron saint of drama. Be good. Go home. Apologize. Go visit your father and mother.”  _

“Yeah, yeah,” she brushed, leaning against the cool metal supports of a rollercoaster and sliding down to the ground. 

_ “One more thing.” _

“Yeah?”

_ “He’s not as bad as you think he is,”  _ Rudy said and abruptly disconnected the line. 


	8. Bourne Ultimatum—For Real This Time

Lucy returned with the company of a half-moon above her, climbing the fire escape instead of futzing with the locks downstairs. She would face Tina and her little family head-on, no more cowardice. A peace offering in the form of a bucket of pink bubble gum hung from the crook of her elbow. She’d stole it from the little Wharf’s food haven when some newbie wasn’t watching the counter filled with cotton candy and other sugary treats.

She crawled through the kitchen window, pleased to find it partially ajar to let in the late spring air. Watching her feet, Lucy avoided the floor littered with children’s toys: mismatched legos, barbie doll faces scrawled with sharpie, melted army men. Amongst the war-like wreckage of toys, Lucy caught sight of a familiar lumpy green figure. Kuchi Kopi. She crouched down to grab her old plaything, flicking the switch on the bottom to see if he still lit up. To her surprise, the cheap LED illuminated within him and a small, satisfied smile crawled across her face. 

“Hello, old friend,” she murmured.

“Mom!” A voice called from the hallway. “You were right! She’s back!” 

Lucy’s eyes sprung up to watch Tina’s daughter Scout run back to the living room. Her quieter brother waited against the entrance to the kitchen, his head cocked to the side, too-big glasses slipping down his pert nose. 

“I’m sorry we scared you off.”

Lucy stood up straight and gently set her old friend on the kitchen table. “It’s nothing you did, kid. I, uh, saw a ghost and got spooked.”

Daniel nodded seriously as he considered that. “Was it the mobster that got killed in the rear booth?”

Lucy snickered. “The Grunt, right?”

“You do know the ghosts around here!” 

Scout barreled back into the kitchen, pulling Tina by the hem of her powder-blue shirt. Tina eyed Lucy hesitantly, her gaze scraping across her shoulders and down Lucy’s bruised ribs, almost as if she knew it hurt every time Lucy gasped or laughed. It was the look of a worried mother and Lucy decided it fit Tina well. 

Guilt burned through her. 

“I brought candy?” She offered as a sort of apology. 

Daniel and Scout screeched in excitement, practically yanking the bucket away from Lucy and instantly shedding the wrappers off a few pieces and cramming them into their mouths. 

“Let’s talk downstairs,” Tina said and then called for Zeke to put the kids to bed. Shame and heat flooded Lucy’s cheeks as she followed Tina back into the restaurant, watching her flip on the lights and grab a bag of chips from underneath the counter. 

Lucy sat on a vinyl red stool while Tina munched on the other side of the counter. 

“I keep snacks everywhere,” Tina said when Lucy hiked up a dark eyebrow, perplexed. Tina’s hand unconsciously rested on her slowly ballooning stomach as she offered the open bag to Lucy, who took a small handful and laid them out on the yellow counter between them. 

“Makes sense.” Though Lucy had no idea about pregnancy or kids or cravings or keeping snacks in hidden places. 

“I’ll get right to it: I’m mad at you.”

Lucy crunched on a chip. “I gathered that.”

“Not for leaving me, but for upsetting the kids,” she explained with a sigh. “Okay, maybe I’m a little mad at you for leaving me to handle the lunch rush by myself.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said instantly, a knee-jerk reaction. “I just...wasn’t necessarily prepared to see  _ him. _ ”

Not prepared at all, actually. It took a lot of effort to talk herself into returning even after she spoke to Rudy. But aggressively searching through the documents Rudy sent definitely helped. She was more than satisfied to find his divorce filings and rejection letters from several medical schools. Not even his evil, meddling mother Cynthia could negotiate a place for him. Lucy discovered that he went to veterinary school instead and that his parents had to help him buy the stupid building next to her family’s restaurant. 

He couldn’t do anything for himself, least of all keep his rocky marriage together.

Logan’s messy divorce from Miss Teen New Jersey was the sweetest thing Lucy read in his file, even better than his career failures. According to the lawsuit, the teen beauty queen cheated on him with an orthodontist she worked for, accidentally texting Logan that she was ‘thrilled to be with a real doctor’ when she meant to text the subject of her affair. Most of the drama made Lucy roll her eyes— _ stupid rich people and their petty problems— _ but mostly, she was smugly satisfied that her childhood enemy had done nothing but suffer since she left home. 

That felt good.

His chuminess with Tina, Zeke, and their children–that felt less good. It was annoying at the very least, ego-crushing at the worst. Lucy couldn’t helped the nagging, intrusive thoughts that said  _ she _ should’ve been the chummy one with them, the kids should’ve crawled out of the booth to see  _ her _ .

“He’s not the same anymore,” Tina said, echoing Rudy’s parting words.

Lucy’s lip curled. “Doesn’t matter. I still hate him.”

“You don’t even know him anymo—” Tina started, but caught herself. “You know what, no, I’m not even going to argue with you on this one, it doesn’t matter.”

“Thank you.”

“What matters,” she continued, ignoring Lucy, “is that you promise me you won’t do that again. I handled you leaving the family all those years ago, but I won’t let you put my kids through that. I’m already doing a lot by lying to them about who you really are. I just—If you want this to work, Lu, you’re going to actually have to work.”

“I have no aversion to work,” she said, crunching another chip between her molars. “I just have a mild aversion to evil boys from childhood.”

Tina rolled her eyes.

“Let me finish!” She said, dusting the salt and grease from her fingers on a thin brown napkin. “I promise you I won’t leave without warning again as long as he never steps foot in here.”

“Not gonna happen, he’s our best customer. He’s been to all of the kid’s birthday parties, he went to Scout’s T-ball game just last weekend—”

“Oh my god, spare me,” Lucy protested with disgust. “You let a  _ monster _ into your household! A  _ parasite _ ! Everything he touches turns to ash and ruin.”

Tina stared at Lucy. “Are you done?” 

“No, I could definitely go on. Rats wouldn’t even sully themselves to nest in his hair. His face is a disgrace to all faces around. He smells like trash had a baby with a toxic spill.” 

Tina leaned her elbows on the counter, met Lucy at eye-level. “He’s been through a lot.”

“I know,” she said and flashed a smile. “Quite a messy divorce, wish she took more, honestly...”

“You’re cruel, Louise,” Tina accused, Lucy’s real name slipping out without a thought. Lucy’s skin crawled at the familiar arrangement of letters. Her muscles locked and suddenly the potato chips looked like a pile of writhing bugs. She closed her eyes, cursed her real name. She’d been hearing it too much recently she feared it might slither into her brain and remind her of all the terrible things she’d done under that name, what it meant to be  _ Louise Belcher.  _

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” she whispered, crumbled the napkin in her fist. “I’m sorry for leaving, I’m sorry for hating Logan. I will...try to be good. I’m not promising to be  _ nice _ to him, but for you and for your kids I will try to coexist. And I won’t bolt without warning you. I promise.”

Tina’s warm hand rested on Lucy’s fist. “That’s all I’m asking.”

Lucy removed her hand from Tina’s, hid it under the formica. 

“In return, I’ll warn you if any old characters from our childhood return.”

Lucy snorted.

“For example, Mom’s coming home tomorrow,” Tina said flippantly and Lucy couldn’t control her eyes as they flicked to the door. 

“Is now enough warning to bolt?” She asked, cursing the slight quiver in her words.

Tina pointed an accusatory finger. “Nope, it’s time to face the music, Lu.”

But why did that music sound like a car crash mixed with a tornado wrapped up in an annoying Jersey accent?


	9. Chapter 9

“Alriiiiiiight.” 

Lucy was going to slit her wrists or blow her brains out. Something extreme. Maybe she had some cyanide capsules hidden in the seam of her duffle bag. Rudy could send a team to extract her body, launch her into the sun as she desired, liquidate her earnings to travel along with her corpse. If she started now, she could even arrange for a flaming bag of dog shit to end up on Logan’s doorstep as a parting gift. 

Linda placed several more kisses on the side of Lucy’s head while squeezing her shoulders, fingers digging into her flesh. That still-broken rib in Lucy’s chest complained against the gruffness, but she wasn’t about to be weak in front of her mother. 

“Oh my baby…” she crooned. “I can’t believe you’re back, god, I missed you so much.”

Lucy rolled her eyes and began working Linda’s grip off of her as dexterously as she could. She didn’t want to offend her so soon after reuniting, but the smothering was reaching a critical maximum of what Lucy could handle. By general rule, she did not particularly like being touched. 

“Just another reminder, Linda, that I’m not  _ back _ . Not officially that is.”

“Oh, of course, my little spy baby, oooh how could I forget?” Linda crooned, releasing her grip on Lucy’s body only to start petting her hair instead, grabbing the white locks between her fingers and scrutinizing them. “What did you do to the beautiful black Belcher hair? Is this part of your disguise?” 

Lucy sighed. Tina met her gaze from across the restaurant and gave her a sympathetic smile. It wasn’t enough. “So, catch me up. How is...father doing?”

“Father?” Linda snorted. “Did spy school teach you to be so formal? My Bobby is doing better. He squeezes my hand sometimes when I sing to him—you know how much your father loves my songs.”

“Right…” Lucy narrowed her eyes. “Tina said he had an accident.”

“Agh!” Linda exclaimed. “It was terrible! I told him he shouldn’t carry things from the basement anymore, he would fall. And what do you know? He doesn’t listen to me, carries a box of buns up on his own and boom, slips on the top step. Poor thing tumbled all the way down to the bottom. Sounded like a car crash! Took five EMTs and Zeke to get him back up the stairs—God, it was so embarrassing.” 

“And now he’s in a coma?” 

Linda nodded soberly. “It’s awful, the doctors don’t know if he’ll ever be able to wake up. But I know my Bobby, I know how strong he is. Plus he made me a deal that we could retire to Bora Bora together, so he has to get better. He just has to. For the daiquiris!” 

Linda’s easy laughter in talking about Bob’s condition made Lucy suspicious. She couldn’t tell if the situation was worse than what Linda was saying or if it wasn’t that bad at all. 

“And you’re staying at the hospital with him?”

“I have been. Teddy’s there now. We sit with him in shifts in case he wakes up he’s not alone. Those small hospital couches are no 5-star accommodations, my neck might permanently fuse crooked if I keep sleeping there.”

“Has the old folks home got back to you, mom?” Tina asked, setting a plate of fries on the table in front of Linda and Lucy. She slid into the booth across from them, bracing her stomach the whole way. 

Linda grabbed a fry. “Yes, they finally have an opening for us, but it’s $13,000 a month for the proper care for Bob! Even with our meager retirement savings, we can only cover about 3 months worth of living.”

Lucy was conflicted with a moral dilemma. Given her rap-sheet of crimes and jobs she’d worked over the years, she had acquired quite a sum of money. But the thing about Lucy was that she hoarded wealth like a dragon, hiding it in off-shore accounts and slithering money around where no one could track it. She was worth quite a bit, but she rarely had cash and the assets weren’t exactly easy to liquidate for a quick payout, but she could get the process started if she told Rudy to. In three months, she could have enough money pulled out for them to stay in the old folks home for the rest of their lives, though it would leave her accounts depleted. She’d have to start from scratch. 

“What about Gene?” Lucy asked, knowing that her brother had some moderate success with his musical career. Surely, if he could live in New York City, he could afford to help out a little bit. 

“I’m not going to ask my little Genie-Weenie for money!” Linda’s loud volume was really starting to grate on Lucy now. She was loud herself sometimes, but she forgot how loud the person she got it from was.

“He hasn’t offered?” Lucy scrunched her nose. Gene was clearly Mom’s favorite out of all the Belcher children, why hadn’t he come running to help?

“Gene ran into a bit of money problems, actually.” Tina jumped in to explain. “His last band was a little reckless with their spending and nearly bankrupted Gene and themselves. He has found a new band and is earning money again, but I don’t think he has much to spare.”

“Hmm.” Lucy was disappointed by this news and disappointed by the fact she hadn’t heard all of this from Gene herself. While Lucy had always gotten along with Tina in childhood, she had a very different bond with Gene, a stronger one born of being the youngest children. When she left at 16, it was Gene she always missed them most. He had reached out to her over the years but mainly early on when Lucy still felt like she shit glitter for being hired by the CIA. It wasn’t until she quit, grew a better moral conscious and had generally more free time that she actually wanted to have a relationship with Gene. By that time though, he had learned to live without his conniving younger sister and he wasn’t willing to dive back in. Lucy pretended like it didn’t hurt her, but really, she’d level an entire city if it meant Gene and her could go back to how they were in childhood. 

“Maybe,” Lucy started and sighed, “I could help out.”

“What?” Linda exclaimed. “No, you don’t need to do that, Louise, keep your money.”

Lucy gritted her teeth at the mention of her birth-name. She  _ was _ trying to be nice, after all. 

“I have plenty to spare,” she said, but it was painful and vaguely untrue. Whatever, maybe the CIA would rehire her and throw in a cool millions-of-dollars-paycheck. 

“I can’t ask you to do that, sweetheart.”

“You don’t have to ask, I’m telling you what I’ll do.”

“Wow, that’s so nice of you, Lu,” Tina added. 

“I’m not saying yes to anything yet, let’s just see how your father does in the next two weeks.”

“What happens in two weeks?” The eldest Belcher daughter asked. 

“The doctors said it’s a critical time in his recovery,” Linda said, the most somber she’d been about the whole topic.

Heat prickled Lucy’s skin, unsure how to react to the news that her father might genuinely die within the next fourteen days. She never got a chance to say—

“Is that Linda Belcher I spy?” A voice interrupted, the backdrop of tinkling bells overlaying his words. 

Lucy growled under her breath as she watched a tall, blond menace slither into the restaurant. 

“Easy, tiger,” Tina whispered. The glare Lucy shot Tina should’ve melted the skin off her face. 

“Logan!” Linda shouted and carefully extricated herself out of the booth. Logan came up to her immediately with a hug, placing a supporting hand under her arm. He kissed each of her cheeks dramatically, which Linda seemed to absolutely gobble it up. 

So the betrayal ran very deep, Lucy noted. Next she expected Gene to walk in the door and kiss Logan straight on the mouth before he even recognized his own lost sister in the booth. 

“How’s Bob?” Logan asked, suddenly serious. He didn’t even notice Lucy was there, her arms tightly crossed, face in full pout. 

“Oh, you know, about the same. How’s Cynthia?”

Logan cracked a grin. “Still terrible. Still asking about my awful marriage.” 

“Agh, what a piece of work,” she added with a smile.

Lucy decided she had enough of this conversation and slid out of the booth, heading toward the employee bathroom, convinced she was going to be sick.

“Who’s this?” Logan asked before Lucy could round the counter. She paused, shoulders bunching up with frustration.

“Oh, that’s our new employee we hired to pick up the slack around her,” Tina explained diplomatically. “Lucy, this is Logan, our neighbor and  _ good _ family friend.”

Sighing through her nose, Lucy pivoted on her heel to face Logan, to face her childhood enemy. She waved unenthusiastically in Logan’s direction. His eyebrows puckered, confusion and familiarity flipping across his features. “Huh, nice to meet you, Lucy!”

“Likewise,” she muttered before finally escaping to the kitchen.

“What’s her problem?” She heard Linda ask Tina.

“I don’t know, let me go check on her.” 

“She was the one that bolted the other day?” Logan clarified. “Let me go talk to her.”

_ Oh god, no! _ Lucy quickly locked herself in the employee bathroom, slid down the wall opposite of the door. 

A knock sounded on the other side. “Hey, uh, Lucy? I think we got off on the wrong foot or something.” 

She clasped her hands over her eyes like a child. A million memories of the torture he inflicted on her flooding back. She felt so small, so little, so inconceivably tiny that she might just disappear off the planet. The time he took her pink bunny ears. The time her father hired him to work in the restaurant. The time he chased her all through town on the threat of the Reverse Norwegian Stink Hold. The time in middle school where he egged her on halloween. An entire nightmare of his very presence crashed into her. 

He knocked again. “You in there?”

“Go away!” She managed to yell hoarsely. Was she crying? Ugh. She pulled out her phone and began dialing Rudy. 

“ _ Hello?” _

The words tumbled out of Lucy’s mouth, fighting to claw their way through to the phone pressed against her hot ear.“Rudes, how quickly can you send an extraction team?” 

“ _ Uhh, what’s going on?” _

Lucy sighed through her nose. She was being dramatic, she realized this now. Logan knocked on the other side of the door and it made her flinch. Suddenly, she was furious that she was letting some pathetic, middle-aged, poor-excuse-for-a-doctor, dude-bro reduce her to a messy pile of limbs and tears. In her lifetime she had stolen billions of dollars worth of goods, toppled small empires, and killed more men than she could count on her fingers and toes. What awaited her outside that door couldn’t stand up to the viciousness that resided in her bones.

She stood instantly, scrubbed the tears from beneath her eyes with the heel of her hand.

“Nothing, Rudy, I was overreacting, I’ll call you later,” she said and hung up. Tugging the door open, she met Logan face-to-face. He was taller than the last time she saw him at 16, easily towering over her petite 5’6” frame. And a small, disgustingly petty part of her noticed that he was  _ fairly _ handsome, with his soft dark blond hair and patch of stubble that climbed up his disappointingly chiseled jaw. He didn’t seem so bad anymore, this close up. He looked like just another dude, boring, mundane, and non-threatening. 

She wondered briefly, as she looked up at him, what it would be like to slap his overly-symmetrical face. 

“I’m Lucy Sullivan,” she said curtly and stuck out her hand. 

His eyes narrowed suspiciously and she prayed to whoever was listening that he would not recognize her. Logan accepted her handshake and Lucy was thrilled by the weakness she felt in his buttery-soft hands. She could bring him to his knees with just a tug of his hand and a carefully placed foot in his groin, this much she knew. A flicker of a smirk crept its way across her face as she readjusted to this power dynamic. She no longer felt small, she felt huge, too big for the small kitchen, too big for Logan’s small world, she felt practically overflowing with self. 

“Dr. Logan Bush, I own the veterinary clinic next door,” he replied and opened his mouth like he was going to continue, but she wasn’t going to give him the time of day anymore. 

“Nice to meet you,” she said and whirled past him. “I have to get back to work now.” 

She didn’t turn back to watch his dumb-founded gaze as she slipped into the basement and slammed the door. Logan’s presence, she realized, was not a curse anymore, but a very careful game. She wouldn’t let him ruin her time here or her purpose, she was stronger than she was as a child, more brutally prepared by the world to deal with even the most petty nuisances like Logan Barry Bush—loser extraordinaire. 


End file.
